DUPC - Division of Fossil Primates

*Aegyptopithecus zeuxis*
	Face of the basal catarrhine primate, just after discovery by H.H. Covert, in the river channel sands of Fayum Quarry M, a site that is about 32 million years old. Subsequent discoveries of numerous limb bones, together with analysis of faces, skulls and jaws all demonstrate that Aegyptopithecus lies somewhere near the base of the family tree of Old World monkeys, apes and humans. Aegyptopithecus was a generalized arboreal quadruped, with different sized sexes, that traveled through the ancient Egyptian jungles is small multi-male, multi-female troops. Its diet is thought to have been mainly fruits and leaves.
Anthracothere
	Inside view of a lower jaw of an anthracothere just after exposure in the loose sands of Quarry I, Fayum, Oligocene. Fossils like this are exposed by brushing away the sand with paint brushes and are uncovered as well by the strong desert winds blowing much of the time between collecting seasons. Quarry I, with an age of about 32 million years, has yielded more fossil primates than any other Fayum locality.
Sirenian skeleton
	Sirenians, or "sea cows", are fairly common fossils in the Fayum exposures. This group of near shore, fresh water and marine aquatic mammals belong in a superorder Afrotheria, together with the groups to which elephants, elephant shrews and hyraxes belong. All these mammals are common at the main fossil sites in the Fayum Eocene and Oligocene where the well-known early anthropoids or anthropoideans are found. Sirenians have thick ribs and flipper like limbs. This one turned up in the marine beds of the Qasr el Sagha Formation. This specimen is about 40 million years old.
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